Usurper Livin'...

[Helium Pond]

Well, I just finished my first SMAX game as one of the Progenitors. I chose to play as the Usurpers, on the Huge map of Planet, with tech stag on, and a self-imposed limit of ten bases, and the aim of winning by Progenitor Victory. Everyone rags on the Proggies so much, I thought I'd see if I could make a challenging game with them.

Well, it turned out to be quite a good game. I purposefully over-extended myself, and held the huge central continent with a very sparse distribution of bases. Cha Dawn was the Unsurpassed faction for most of the game, and tech stag made it a real race against time. If I'd been playing blind, I don't think I'd've made it; as it was, I won around MY 2396, just four years from retirement.

What did I learn?

1) Don't pop boom with Marr--or if you do, have Hybrid Forests. I spent a large part of the mid-game trying to pull off a decent pop boom, and it was a real drag; I had to really micromanage every city, because each new citizen meant a drone riot. My life would probably have been easier if I'd had Hybrid Forests available, but even by 2200 it was clear that I needed to beeline for Singularity Mechanics (which enables Progenitor Victory), and Planetary Economics just isn't on the way.

2) The AI doesn't take much notice of Progenitor Victory. Nobody even tried to stop me. Of course, I was already at Vendetta with most of them, so maybe it made no difference.

3) It's all about specialists, baby. I used specialists far more extensively this game than I have before; I needed to, to get up the tech tree. Set them crawlers up on one of those nutrient bonus/condensor/enricher/farm squares (10nutrients!), and put those citizens a-specializin!

4) The color of a Planet Buster blast is apparently randomized. I know, big whoop, I just hadn't noticed before. (After the game was over I built a ton of 'em, and let fly, so I got to see a lot of pretty mushrooms...)

It was neat to see almost all the Secret Projects go by, with not even a chance of me stealing them. Anyway, I just wanted to weigh in and let y'alls know that the Progenitors can actually be a fun faction, if you set it up right.

[Googlie]

HP:

Unless you've been tinkering with your alphax.txt you had 104 years before retirement.

At Librarian, Thinker and Transcend you have 400 years from 2100. I've often seen players confuse that with a 2400 stop date.

And I agree, the aliens rock. I got my butt kicked in both Alien parallel games with big_canuk - (in one I played Marr, he H'minee, and in the other we reversed roles)

Both games he got nervegas noodles before I even discovered fossil fuels - can you spell "ethnic cleansing"? But a different playstyle with them.

G.

G.
[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited December 15, 2000).]

[Purple]

I've tried alien factions several times, HP, but without much success. Your post encourages me to try again. When I play human factions, the aliens almost always turn out to be major rivals.

One thing I remember disliking about the aliens is the full view of Planet that you get from the outset. I love the beginning-game exploration phase and the black area helps me decide what direction to take to find pods and avoid retracing routes.

Does anyone know how the various factions fare in MP? I've never played in that mode, but cummulative stats should give some idea of relative chances of success.

Purple

[hellrazor]

People confuse the retirement date because the manual is wrong...it says 2400 for the top three levels.

[RedFred]

Purple, do the Aliens get played a lot in MP? I a MP rookie, for one, would not be thrilled about playing against them.

hey are bad enough neighbours in the AI's hands. I sure wouldn't want to be started next to them in MP.

[Helium Pond]

I remembered another thing I learned:

*If you're in a Pact with any human faction, you can't win the Progenitor Victory. I had the Subspace Generator built and I wasn't winning, and I couldn't figure out why. Then I re-read the win conditions carefully--it said Cooperative Progenitor Victory is NOT allowed--and broke my Pact with Aki-Zeta, and bingo! A lovely little cut-scene, and victory. I just wish they could have made every human unit on Planet blow up, or something. That would have rocked.


Actually, I am currently in a seven-player MP game, as the Caretakers. It's a full SMAX game--only SMAX factions. I must say I'm not a very good neighbor, in point of fact. The other Progenitor and I are tops in the Dominance charts, but I fear Domai--he's been snagging every single Secret Project, and that industry of his has me freaked out. Thank goodness we're on different continents. I've been trying to make Cha Dawn an ally--seems like good roleplaying to me--but he ain't biting, as of yet.

[Killjoy]

HP: Sounds like a very cool game. I'd be interested to hear how it plays out!

[Googlie]

hellrazor: right - I forgot about that

G.

[Helium Pond]

And, oh yeah: the manual's wrong? All this time I've been panicking about 2400 on Transcend, when it's actually a hundred years later? Arrrrg! Are you sure?

[Skanderbeg]

Hi Helium Pond!

Yes, the retirement time is 2500 on transcendent level.
In my current game (Data Angels, with blind research and a lot of fighting in the early game), I am now at year 2452, and transcendence is still far away.
This game will be one of the hardest and strangest I ever played (energy restriction lifted in 2380!), I am now leading in the power graph, but it's still not sure if I win because time is running out.
Perhaps I can make a thread about the "Latest transcendent victory"

Greeting Skanderbeg

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Helium,

Interesting commentary on Marr. Could you give your strategy used for SE chocies throughout the game?

I've found, Marr as a builder has some issues mainly in the form of efficiency.

Just like Hminee he gets of the ground very well particularly due to free tanks. In fact he can race through the tech tree much quicker (IMHO) than Booger b/c of his ability to run Frontier/FM/wealth. He does tend to bog down in the mid game with poor ability to pop boom (yes he can GA pop boom though).

What I find though is with the free tanks and going FM/wealth ASAP he is very likely to be able to run the table on aquiring the early SPs.

As an aside, I was somewhat confused on your point of blind research. I was under the impression regardless of game choice the Alien factions always have directed research.

Midgame on your approach through specialization is right onthe money. In fact, you'll probably want to take a page out of the condesor/farm approach to aid his growth (offsetting pop boom issues) in order to fuel the research.

AS a test, I also limitted myself to but 10 bases (Large world not huge) and by 2180 had IA, lifted all restrictions, had D:AP and built WP,ME, HGP, VW, PT, Command Nexxus. I missed out on Empath Guild. In this instance to be fair I was not using crawler upgrades either.

On the flip side I was on my own continent and as a consequence of my SE choices was not able to go out and see the world. My only contact was with the Pirates who went Vendetta on me due to choice of wealth. But all in all, Marr was cruising by this time with most bases having built tree farms and populations averaging 5.

Anyway just my ramblings....

Happy holidays

Og

Editted: Whoops didn't fully read you were using Tech Stag additionally. This completely muddies the issue. All in all though would love to hear your thoughts on SE choice during the course of your game.
[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited December 18, 2000).]

[Googlie]

Hopefully big_canuk will visit this thread and expound on his strategies in our parallel Alien games.

In my two, I concentrated on a small (relatively) number of bases - 10 to 15 - and tried to build every infrastructure available at the time (for the energy build up. He went ICS in both games, and left me in his wake. (Colony pods were generally cheaper than base facilities, and pod > base > instant recyclying tanks gave more energy than, say, a holotheater in an existing base.

From the moment he discovered my whereabouts in both games, (probed me to death, subverting bases that he then used as advanced based for his nervenoodles) I was in the endgame, and it was too late for me to do anything but fight a delayed rearguard action. I capitulated in both around the 2210 mark.



But let himn tell the story........

Googlie


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited December 18, 2000).]

[big_canuk]

Hi Guys:

Googlie: Thanks for the introduction, and sorry I took so long to get here.

Commentary on my Aliengames playstyle:

Hminee:

I found her much the easier to play. I did a very thin ICS to start. 30 mins for base, tanks, and a worker is just to good to pass up. I beelined for IA. I went FM as soon as I got the tech. Wealth as soon as I got that. Googlie started the WP a bit too early, IMHO, and that slowed his growth.

As soon as I got IA, I built crawlers. The 1st crawler on forest, and build another.. and another.. till all my 10 or 12 bases were at 14 mins +. Then build a few more crawlers, and built the ME and VW same turn from scratch from cashed in crawlers. Then build pods in all bases, and build the PTS. All bases go back up to 3, (no starvation, cause of tanks), and A few turns later plopped down 10 new pop 3 bases. My pop effectively quadrupled in 5 turns.

The rest is just basic builder (beeline treefarms), and then beeline MMI initially for thinkers. Mind you, when I found Googlie, I wanted to make sure I "contained" him while I could.

I did a small pop boom to pop 7 in most bases just after gene splicing, using kelp farms, and crawlers switched from mins to food. Then another after tree farms and HFs to 14. Just doing my last to 16, and catching up smaller new bases. Just going to get HSA, the turn after Googlie agreed to "surrender".

I used 3 specialist cities, to build, or re-home my 15 or so military units, especially the noodles, to avoid pacifist drone problems, even though I ran FM, except when on planned for pop booms. (I tried to make any extra military units come onstream while on planned, and get them rehomed through the specialist cities).

I set up my second city which was coastal, on a river, near an energy special, as my SCC. As soon as I got Flex, I build lots of sea formers, and then trawlers, for food and energy for the SCC. The SCC was the only one to get a Thermocline Transducer

Marr:

Marr was MUCH more difficult. In a word, no pop booms, and I started on a small, 5 or 6 base island.
My second base got founded on a river energy special (WOW!), so I decided to go for SotHB. By that time I realized my island was too small, so went for Doct:flex.

Then the beeline to IA. Still did ICS, but let one base go to pop 5 (with the ORGE as police). Tried to get the WP, but had to settle for the HGP. Once I got flex, built pods, settled all the surrounding islands, and sent my 3rt-3 transports off exploring and popping pods. Got quite a few AA's, and some ecs. Brought back the AA's, picked up probes, and went looking for Hminee.

I did the same thing with crawlers. Built up all my bases to near max mins, and then cashed them in for ME one turn, and PTS, and something else the next. Googlie beat me to the VW. Given Marr can't boom, I used trawlers to build bases to pop 5 with usually 1 or 2 librarians. I again build lots of trawlers for energy, and kelp, for my SCC. (headquarters changed to 2nd base on energy special, coastal too).

Found the Jungle on one of the near islands, which helped a bit. Spent most of the game on Simple/FM/Wealth, and when I found Googlie, on Fundy/Planned/Wealth. I probed a base on an island close to Googlies main island. I then bought it figuring I would have to burn it. But I was able to bring in the reinforcements in time to keep it as a forward stagging area, first with skimships, and transports, then with a sea base 1/2 way between my territory and his, to ferry my noodles over. Again, I rehommed all noodles to 2 bases, with the intention of making them specialist cities, when I went back to FM, although I never did.

I'm sure I left lots out, so please ask questions!

Edited for typos.

[This message has been edited by big_canuk (edited December 18, 2000).]

[Helium Pond]

Ogie: I'm having trouble remembering what I did. Tech Stag was key to the whole game, though, as most of the time I was trying to maximize tech. I know I did Free Market most of the time, but switched to Knowledge from Wealth when it became available.

I made an .avi file of the last 2/3 of my game, by taking screenshots on the map, from the ctrl+x view, at the end of every turn. It's cool but it's too big to send; does anyone know a good freeware .avi format conversion tool? I bet if I switched the resolution down I could make it sendable.

And you're right, I forgot that Aliens always have directed research (except in PBEM games, by the way).

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Googs,

Good point regarding ICS and hopefully Big_Canuk visits here as I would be most interested in hearing what he has to say. I'ld especially be interested to see if he bothered building any infrastructure facilites at all. I'm thinking either a net node or a e-bank would be a nice to have as it would then allow +1 more energy (2 facilities being the free tanks and either banks or nodes) and multiply either lab or econ. If VW is built the nodes will then allow base growth as well.

I have to imagine for ICS purposes, the free tanks are huge and if coupled with FM/wealth the base square will be churning out obscene amounts of energy. Even if one needs to make the first citizen nothing but a doctor the base is still a bargain for the mins invested.

The self imposed limit that Helium used tho' at no more than 10 bases was intriguing. Had I only read the post more closely I would have enabled tech stag. All in all my feeling still holds the Progenitor faction especially with free tanks are overpowered for anything other than Human vs. Human competition or as a foil 'gainst a human in the hands of the AI. (Problem is as a foil there is little downside to use of nerve gas 'gainst, perhaps just some eco issues)


[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited December 18, 2000).]